1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cardiac-event processor and a heart treatment device.
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application Nos. 2009-250442 and 2009-250443, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, a heart treatment device that treats tachycardia or fibrillation by reducing the heart rate with electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve has been known (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2004-173790 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. Hei 8-38625). On the other hand, a device and a method wherein information on cardiac events is stored in an implantable medical device, the stored information is acquired by external equipment, and the state of a heart is displayed as a histogram have been known (for example, see U.S. Pat. No. 6,941,167 Specification). A doctor diagnoses the state of the heart of a patient and considers treatment methods, using the displayed histogram.
With the device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,941,167, heart treatment by nerve stimulation is not taken into consideration. Therefore, when a patient has an implanted heart treatment device, which enables nerve stimulation, cardiac-event information acquired from the patient is displayed as a single histogram without distinguishing unstimulated heartbeats of the patient from the heartbeats due to the nerve stimulation.